debate

I have decided to respond to, “tweets” sent to Richard Dawkins with the hashtag #Imanatheistbecause.

Without further ado, let’s jump straight in with this one:

I became an atheist when I was told at church that it doesn’t what you do if you aren’t Christian you go to hell @RichardDawkins#Imanatheistbecause.

Well, this one’s a fairly straight forward one to respond to.

There are two possible reasons why this person has come to this conclusion.

The leaders at this person’s Church were incompetent and taught a fundamentally flawed doctrine of salvation.

This person has drastically misunderstood the doctrine of salvation.

Just so we’re all on the same page, here’s what the bible has to say about it.

23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

So, because of the fall, the cost of mankind’s shortcomings before God is death. We all die! This verse refers to a little more than just physical death of course.

Let me use an illustration (I’m not the greatest of artists!) to show what I’m getting at here:

So we are one side of this huge chasm that separates us from God.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

I’ve added my own emphasis there because, ‘all’ is the key to this. There is no one on earth better than anyone else. We all come short of God’s standards.

It says a little later, in revelation:

Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:15)

Basically, you get your name in the book of life when you realise the following:

That is you up there in that picture! You are separated from God by a huge gaping chasm of sin. But, don’t worry, we’re all in that position, you’re not alone!

God has come up with a way for us to be reconciled to him, through Christ

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18)

Accept this gift from God…… this is the easy bit, it’s a free gift (the best we’ll ever receive)

That’s it, your names down on the list….

So you see… Despite wether this is a misinterpretation on the tweeter’s part, the Church who taught him about it or whatever, the point was lost in translation.

It isn’t a message of: If you’re not a christian you will burn in hell, that is such a warped interpretation.

The truth is much more elegant and beautiful. God loves us, always has, always will; we overlooked that in favour of self gratification. We rejected God. God says, that’s cool, if you want that then you can have that for eternity. However, if you want to regain that original relationship, you can do it simply by receiving the gift of Christ on the cross.

I’ve done it again haven’t I?

I picked out a simple one at the start with the hope of having time and space for a few tweets and responses but, i’ve gone off on one!

Consider this a bonus, it means you will get loads more posts! You lucky so and so’s…

I mentioned in my last post that I used to be an atheist right??? Well, recently I was digging around my old atheist internet presence and discovered a number of forum posts I made that I thought might be interesting to share in the context of this blog.

I post regularly on an off-topic, sub-forum of Dubstep Forum , a website dedicated to discussing bassy underground music, and it is in this sub forum that, as an atheist, I used to enjoy engaging in debate on the subject of God.

Reading through some of these old debates got me thinking about how interesting it would be to converse with my dead-in-sin self. Therefore, I bring you: Conversations with an Atheist, a series of refutations engaging with my old self.

The non-existent paradox.

In the early days of my relationship with Gemma I came up with this, “paradox” that I thought would crush her faith in God.

Here is the original, unedited post I put up on Dubstep forum, explaining this paradox

my girlfriend and I are very much in love! We both differ in several ways but there is one big,
universal difference: I am, entirely, Atheist (I denounce the holy spirit and reject god).
She, on the other hand, is entirely faithful to the "word" of jesus Christ.
She insists that she loves me beyond anything I can ever imagine,
so i presented her with an idea that spiralled towards the paradox I am about to mention.
I said to her: you love me on this earthly experience, for me; that is all you get,
there is no eternity beyond. However, your earthly experience is only a tiny percentage of your
eternal existence (based on her Biblical beliefs). As she accepts god and prays for forgiveness,
it is wise to assume that (in her eyes) she will be granted eternity in heaven.
Heaven is the paradox! If she loves me and feels her life is joyful and indeed,
as she has said, her existence is joyful with me in it, yet I won't spend eternity in heaven with her
as I reject the holy spirit, thus committing the only unforgivable sin.
If heaven is meant to be perfect, god grants your soul with everything it longs for and desires,
yet I won't be there to complete her heaven. How can heaven, and beyond that; God, even begin to exist??
This paradox alone is not what I base my Atheism on, far from it!
But I feel it makes a strong argument in support of my side of the argument.
I'm posting this for several reasons:
I enjoy writing about these things.
I want to hear as many varying opinions on the matter as I can.
I would like to try and puzzle out this paradox, with the input and wisdom of others.
I'm obsessed with weird s**t like this and until I have rectified the situation I can't rest.
With the last point I know I am being slightly contradictory in the sense that;
I am attempting to solve a paradox and, as we all know, a paradox
(by its very nature) is unsolvable. The trouble is I always want to try and solve the bloody things
and this leads to this kind of obsessive ranting.
On a side note, perhaps studying English literature really isn't the subject for me
(Literature is full to the brim with paradoxes)
I would be really interested to see some decent responses to this.

As it is plain to see, I was a little bit deluded back then but, let’s not jump to assumptions about my personality without first having a thorough look at what I was getting at.

I was saying in essence that heaven for Gem would not have been complete without myself in it! That was the big point in my argument!

I don’t know about you but, I find that really really arrogant. I was assuming that, without wonderful old me, my girlfriend’s eternity would be incomplete! I see this a lot in Atheist arguments, a complete misunderstanding of the eternity that we believe in as Christians. I also didn’t really get the concept of grace either did I?

So, the easy way to refute this fella is from the standpoint of eternity. If I were to argue against this paradox today I would likely say something along these lines:

I do not believe that this is a paradox at all. First let me point out that this argument is only paradoxical if you make several assumptions about an unknown. One of those assumptions is that your presence would be the deciding factor on weather or not heaven was a good experience. If heaven’s greatness depended on your presence then it wouldn’t be heaven seeing as you are a mortal human being unlike any other mortal human being. You also define, ‘perfect’ subjectively. The OED would define it as:

Notice how none of those points requires myself to be there. As Christians, we believe that humans have been entirely corrupted due to sin. Sin is anything that falls short of God’s standards (perfect). So, from where I am standing, your girlfriend is not perfect and neither are you. Heaven is about enjoying eternity in God’s presence and not in the company of your boyfriend/girlfriend. That isn’t to say there won’t be loved one’s in heaven, just that earthly relationships don’t compare to heavenly ones!

Also, as an atheist, you cannot reject the Holy spirit. You can block it but, until you have experienced it how can you reject it?

Sounds like you are worried about this, ‘unforgivable sin’. I would like to reassure you by pointing you in the directions of Romans:9-13

9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame. 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of alland richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

You will be just fine, there’s nothing Christ won’t die for, there’s nothing God won’t forgive if that’s what you so desire…

As this was posted (by, ‘this’ I mean the original paradox) on an internet forum, many people responded. Unfortunately, they all agreed that I had smashed the concept of God which hugely inflated my ego. A few posts later and I added the following:

I understand that the transcendant nature of Heaven implies a level of
joy unparralelled in the human domain, but still find this issue with the Christian God
in which she bases her faith.
I can, as a real atheist accept that there is a possibility of God,
we don't know and can never prove it, but this God is not the God of the Bible
and that is where my issues lie.
I have a major problem with all (at least all that I am aware of) monotheistic relligions.
I feel very strongly and confidently that, without these relligions the world would be a better place.
There would be no acts of devestating violence commited in the name of "God"
(the vast majority of "worldwide impact" violence is commited under the guise of relligion)
and yes there will be unspeakable acts commited and things will not be "peachy" but I think,
without that contributing factor, there would be a significant fall in worldwide violence.

He he he, I was a little bit misguided wasn’t I?!

Let’s jump straight in to another response…..

If you accept that there could be a God, why can you not accept the God of the Bible? A, God would be a supreme being capable of doing anything right? Why couldn’t that God be the Christian God then?

Your argument about Religion and violence is another one I here a lot. I agree with you too! Religion most certainly does come hand in hand with both fundamentalists and power hungry violent types but, a true follower of Christ is neither religious nor is he power hungry. Christ actively sought to end religious practices. It is true, lots of atrocious things have been carried out in the name of religion and the world would most likely be a better place if religious fundamentalism was eradicated but, in your argument, you are failing to make the distinction between God and those fanatical few humans who do things in the name of God. All you are doing is adding further evidence to the Christian perspective that humanity is thoroughly corrupted.

I then posted this a little later:

A Christian God is about forgiveness. In fact, according to them, he wanted to forgive us so much
for our 'original sin' that he sent his only begotten son down to us to physically redeem humanity
via the ultimate sacrifice.
Christians believe that we are all born of sin and throughout our lives we
commit more and more of these sins. Our sins are not automatically forgiven by God, far from it.
The only way we can be forgiven is to put our faith in humanity's redeemer, Jesus Christ
and (because he died for our ((yours and mine)) sins) we gain redemption and admittance to the kingdom
of heaven.
Having said all this, there is one sin that not even the son of God can forgive us from.
The sin I am refferring to is denial of the Holy spirit and thus denial and rejection of the trinity.
In commiting this sin, you are creating a Godless eternity and will suffer in hell.
You cannot be forgiven for having doubt!!
This is one of my main issues with Christianity, it forces people to believe in God with the threat of Hell.
Just like a masked gunman might force you to empty the cash register/ your wallet/
insert whatever may seem applicable here...
God is the gunman and, if you reject him and ignore his prescence, he pulls the trigger and the bullet
of Hell enters your body. If you accept on the other hand, you are granted permission to heaven and the
whole gun issue is forgotten.
God really is a bit mean, don't you think??

What was I on back then?!

Again, lets jump straight in with my new response:

It is clear you are worried about this unforgivable sin as you keep bringing it up so, lets take a look at that in a little more detail.

This sin appears in the Gospels twice, the most familiar example is this one:

22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see.

23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul,by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Ok so, in context we can see that Jesus had just performed a miracle in driving out a demon. This was witnessed by several people who were astonished but, the cynical Pharisees, in their desire to dismiss Jesus as just another man, claimed that Jesus was performing miracles in the power of Satan.

Without going into a huge, long winded, analysis of this passage, when Jesus talks about an unforgivable sin, he is referring to this kind of act. An act where someone witnesses the power of Christ and denies it in favour of something else. The upshot of all of this is that, it would be impossible to come to Christ as a repentant sinner if you had committed this sin.

(Of course, I am now saved so it is absolutely obvious I had not committed that sin at the time)

Christianity doesn’t force people to believe at gunpoint! The bible says that the wages of sin is death. It says that, if you so desire to live a life in sin then you are free to do so but, there is a huge consequence. It offers a better solution to this problem in Christ but, it does not, at any point, insist that you have to do this. There is no force, God wants us to make our own minds up!

The thread sort of died down after a while but, I went there recently and made a post about my coming to Jesus and my salvation. There were lots of retorts mocking but one reply really intrigued me:

I’m kind of realising that a lot of Atheists don’t really seem to know why they are atheist and they are just going along with peer consensus or whatever, and that there is such a thing as ‘atheist dogma’.

I like this, the guy that posted that is an Atheist. I hope I have sowed a seed of doubt there.

Well, that was fun. I think, next post, I’ll do something a bit different to keep it nice and varied.